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Stewardship

Fri, 08/31/2018 - 7:49pmadmin

By:

Diana Haecker

We live in a place of abundance and this time of the year reminds us of the blessings that we have all around us here in Nome. Fish are arriving in great numbers in our rivers. The salmonberries are insane this year and the blueberry crop is going to be just as abundant. Not only will there be lots of berries but they look like they’re going to be big, juicy and full of nutrients our bodies will crave in the winter time.
The other day I witnessed a bear in the Nome River just frolicking around, lazily going for some fish, then leisurely taking a swim to a sandbar, putzing around there and back into the river to roll around in the cool water. It was a scene of pure happiness and life was good.
We need to relish these moments when life is just good, but never forget that we need to be good stewards of the land to hold up that unspoken covenant we have with nature. Nature takes care of us, but we also need to take care of the natural world around us. We need to do what we can to protect our water, land and air from pollutants or destruction.
We ought to oppose mining methods that may destroy fragile ecosystems for generations to come. We need to curb our consumption of plastics that end up in the ocean and poison marine life. We need to be more mindful of our energy consumption and fossil fuel pollution that heats up the world in unprecedented ways. We need to be ready for the havoc we wreak on the earth’s climate and we ought to do our darnest to help turn this ship around towards a more sustainable future for all of us. —D.H.—